Hi Ronni, it seems you are a Creationist? I respect your views. I come from a completely different background re the origin of humans. I was raised Roman Catholic. Nowhere in my Catholic education were we taught that humans were literally created apart from other animals. Most important was that God creates all life, regardless of the process. I studied zoology and human evolution at university. My perceptions of humans have been shaped as such, that we are part of an evolutionary path and that we will keep evolving. It doesn't stop here.

Bias in nature enables animals to make the right judgements for their survival.This involves territorial/mating warfare, killing rivals, killing and eating sick/unwanted infants including bullying of members which appear different from the rest, etc. From what I have learnt, humans are also primitively hard-wired this way, hence all the violence, murder and abuse within our own species. I believe consciousness can change this, but it will take a lot of practice and a long time. I believe that unconscious bias is much more prevalent than conscious prejudice and is often not compatible with our conscious values.

Our views aren’t nearly as different or far apart as they might seem. Best I can put it is that I just add a piece in between the evolution of the rest of the universe and the evolution of ‘human Beings’ or ‘human consciousness’ or however we want to call that ‘thing’ that actually makes us different from animals. (Self-awareness, free will and the ability/capacity to actually change our natural and artificial environments, and not just always have to be adapting to it, the way animals, plants and the rest of nature does; which adaptation I call ‘evolution’ as Darwin had it.)

I do believe in that level of evolution, as well...but...for me that’s more of an ‘unconscious’ evolution. However, I think the majority of ‘humans’ embodied today are meant to evolve consciously...with only a very small minority still evolving more-or-less mechanically. (Hopefully, I do not need to add that everything I have ever thought or written, here or anywhere else, is only according to my own current best knowledge and level of understanding and belief system. These are all fluid; they change all the time...well...
...as soon as I find something that makes more sense to me, personally. .)

How I would put it is that ‘God’ (however we want to envision that principle), is fully in control of the parameters of Darwin’s (mechanical) evolution – but has left the rest up to us ‘humans’.

I believe in what you are calling ‘unconscious bias’, but not that it is coming out of some ‘ancestral ape’. I ascribe the idea of ‘survival of the fittest’ including concomitant tendencies for brutality and killing, to a mistake of perception at the human consciousness level, but not that the first living organism on Earth was programmed or ‘hard-wired’ that way (whether that was an atom, amoeba or a bacterium).

My family-of-origin religion is also Roman Catholic. I long ago realized that they are teaching mostly crap for true spirituality...so, for me it has been a process of discernment to not just throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I also do very much value differing views – and yours, especially; for, your reasonableness and non-judgement, and
your kind and gentle nature most certainly do shine through. .

The best humans can do is to keep researching and hypothesising and to be mindful/aware of the negative influences of preconceived ideas/bias in our research. We naturally like to have certainty, but uncertainty doesn't bother me, as long as people try to live in harmony with each other.

Re adaptation, I think we would have been better off remaining as hunter gatherers. Life was a lot more treacherous, constantly having to protect oneself from predators and under constant pressure to find food, but people were living in resonance with their environment and with each other, natural living, as God/nature designed. There were no mass wars, virtually no diseases of modern civilisation eg.heart disease, obesity, cancer, diabetes etc., there was equality among men and women, their lifestyle was indefinitely environmentally sustainable. People were living well into their 80s and 90s. I wouldn't be surprised if civilisation has only made us dumber. We have lost the connection with our earth. Imo, this is a devastating loss for humanity. Farming was the beginning of the end, feeding us unnaturally copious amounts of the same food, day in day out, which has made us ill and stupid.

Ronni, thanks for your kind complements and sensitivity. You are a sweet person yourself.

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